Up to 7 percent interest for LetsGo account holders

IN a bid to cater for the unbanked population and drive financial inclusion, LetsGo account holders under the new Letshego Bank can earn up to 7 percent interest, Letshego Namibia’s Chief Executive Officer, Ester Kali has said.

Addressing delegates at the 4th annual Confidente-NCCI business cocktail held at the Ongwediva annual trade fair last week, Kali highlighted that this move was to target the financially excluded population to help them realise better returns on their earnings.

“This is truly unheard of.Nowhere in the market can you earn this type of interest on a transactional account.With LetsGo it is possible.When you keep a balance of lower than N$5000 on your account, you earn 7 percent interest.When your balance exceeds N$5000, your interest rate drops to 3.5 percent.

“Let me explain our thinking to you.We are offering the “financially excluded” the opportunity to earn high interest returns – an opportunity that they did not have in the past.This just goes to show how committed we are to driving financial inclusion,” Kali said.

The recently introduced LetsGo account also allows account holders to use any ATM countrywide at low-low pricing, has no monthly account fees, no cash deposit fees and no internet banking and cellphone banking subscriptions fees.

Kali added that Letshego’s business operations are aligned to the Maya declarations where Namibia has committed to unlock the economic and social potential of the worlds’ unbanked communities, through financial inclusion and embedding of the Namibia Financial Sector Strategy where Namibia targets to reduce the level of financial exclusion from the baseline level of 51 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2021.

“From what we can see from the 2017 survey is that we have already reached that target and financial exclusion is now estimated at 22 percent, and is 4 percent better that the target that Namibia has set at 26 percent,” she said.

Kali added that in conjunction with Financial Literacy Initiative (FLI),Letshegostrives to educate staff and customers through the means of financial training in order to give them the ability to manage their finances where possible and to live within their means and do not resort to taking our loans to support their lifestyle.

“Given this, Letshego continues to drive the development of its solutions that are responsive, solves customers’ needs and reward productive financial behaviour therefore, we have introduced programs such asthe improving life campaign – which commits to encouraging responsible financial behavior.

“We are embracing a customer-centric culture at Letshego which is why the “Improving Life Campaign” is important to us as we live up to our brand promise, “Lets Improve Life”.

“Through this annual improving lives campaign, we educate our customers about productive loan use.It takes the form of a competition where customers share their stories of how loan funds have assisted them,” Kali further explained.